Second biomechanist tests positive for chucking

A second biomechanist who provided care and instruction at a rehabilitation centre for suspect bowling actions has contracted the dreaded chucking virus, according to preliminary test results released recently. The scientist reported a crook in his arm over the weekend and was immediately isolated at the ICC-accredited Sri Ramachandra Medical College in Chennai, health officials said in a statement.

"Until recently, it was thought that chucking was only communicable via the exchange of bodily fluids and close proximity to Darrell Hair," said a spokesman for the National Centre for Disease Control in New Delhi, "and people were generally thought not to be contagious before symptoms such as high fever and dodgy quicker balls start to manifest. So we are a little stumped as to how these care workers are getting infected."

It had also been previously thought that only bowlers were susceptible to the virus, but the latest case marks the third time a care worker has contracted the bug in the past few weeks since what the ICC calls the "UWA Disaster", when an entire team of previously ICC-accredited specialists from the University of Western Australia allegedly became so infected that they were rendered incapable of detecting a straightened bowling arm.

The latest biomechanist to be infected was part of a crack team of experts assembled at the Chennai testing facility to treat Saeed Ajmal and Sunil Narine, two of the more high-profile bowlers to have contracted the disease in recent times. Narine is thought to have picked up the virus somewhere in India while on a recent visit, a theory that has ballooned into a matter of some conjecture and controversy, with the BCCI claiming that the West Indian contracted the disease before coming to India, and the spinner maintaining that he picked it up during an IPL after-party.

Meanwhile, a union representing biomechanists working with chuckers has criticised the testing centre, saying that the appropriate protocols were not in place to protect the caregivers when Ajmal and Narine were being treated.

"We have reason to believe that there weren't enough hazmat body suits for all the biomechanists to wear when dealing with the chuckers," said a union spokesman. "As everyone knows, the most dangerous part of the treatment as far as the biomechanists are concerned is when they have to get close enough to randomly place those little motion-sensors along the torso and arm of the chucker."

A growing number of experts believe that unless the situation is brought under control and fast, the world will have to brace itself for a pandemic of epic proportions. There have already been reports of people digging bunkers in apparent preparation for the upcoming chucking apocalypse, and stockpiling supplies of food, water and weapons. Some have also, in an effort to keep an eye on unwanted intruders, taken the added measure of equipping the entry and exit points of their shelters with the kind of high-tech slow-motion cameras that aid in the detection of bowlers who throw the ball.

Meanwhile, travel has also been affected by the crisis, with some countries, most notably the UK and Australia, tightening up immigration checks and arranging for bowlers to be tested the moment they land. Those that are found to have a degree of flex in their arms greater than 15 degrees are isolated in quarantine booths or in some cases even sent back to their home countries on the next available flight.

As it stands, the primary treatment remains remodelling a chucker's action such that he doesn't flex his arm beyond 15 degrees. If that fails, however, a final last-ditch attempt to save the victim from succumbing to the ailment is to infuse plasma from a donor (usually a bowler who has recently recovered from the virus and whose system therefore is still full of antibodies ready to fight the disease) into the blood of a currently suffering victim.

"We had initially roped in Marlon Samuels for this purpose," said a spokesman for the Chennai testing centre, "but it turns out he never really did recover fully from the virus as previously thought. We are still looking for someone who has made a full recovery so we can get some of that plasma into the likes of Narine and Ajmal, etc. It is proving a hell of a lot more difficult than we thought."

Indeed, one of the more controversial theories that has been gaining ground in recent days holds that the virus for chucking is present within all cricketers, is usually harmless, and that most of the reaction to it is nothing more than mass hysteria.